Feel “the power of the Word” of Truth! Enjoy GEMs of its application
from insights of Cobbey Crisler and others for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Truth”
for July 25, 2021
shared by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
START & STAY IN THE ABSOLUTE WITH AFFIRMATIONS & DENIALS as does John 1:1-3 (Responsive Reading) The “Scientific Statement of Being” also follows this pattern on Science & Health page 468.
[Cobbey Crisler:] “In the beginning was the Word… without (the Word of God) “was not anything made that was made.”
“John 1:1. John starts off unlike any of the preceding gospels. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He starts off, as a matter of fact, as only one other book of the Bible begins. Notice Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. ” Do you think the early readers of his gospel would have recognized that? Do you think that was John’s intent? That it should be recognized?
“There is something that is a major clue to studying the Bible. That is, when you get the remotest hint of an Old Testament verse in the New Testament, don’t ignore it or put it aside. It’s there for a very deep reason. It probably holds the key to the meaning of the New Testament event, or the author would not have included it. By no means make the mistake which Professor Davies, Professor Dodd, Professor Albright and many others of our top New Testament scholars say we often make. That is, when you find a verse in the New Testament which comes from the Old Testament, either an exact quote or a paraphrase, don’t just go back to that verse. Read the context around it. Study the environment; get deeply involved in the thought and intent of the Old Testament passage. You may be more closely at-one with what the author in the New Testament means. In other words, what do you have? You have a blend of the whole Bible that way. You find that Old and New Testaments become inseparable, which is virtually the view, I think, that the authors of the New Testament take. The account of the “Walk to Emmaus” in Luke 24: 13-35 shows how much Jesus and the apostles used the Old Testament to show how much the New Testament fulfills Old Testament prophecies.
“It also seems clear to me that Jesus, in his approach to mankind, from his outlook, his acts, his attitudes, his words as well as works, embraced universal humanity. You’ll find hints of it passed down from his early students to their students, and so forth. But more than this, Jesus of Nazareth was a Bible student to surpass all Bible students. Therefore, if he knew in his own thought when an event affecting him or others of his period was the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy, or a lesson should be learned from a new/old truth that came out of the reservoir of the Scriptures, then he would so state it.
“But sometimes he allowed it to remain hidden. It would force his hearers, as well as his readers in this century, to become Bible students with him if they wanted to understand what he was saying. He embraces universal humanity. He addresses and communicates particularly to Bible students. As far as Jesus’ comprehension of the word “Christian” is concerned, it probably would be fair to say that he would insist that Christians become Bible students just to comprehend what the word meant. What does that say to us today? Does that mean we should be reading these books, this collection, this library called the Bible? Specifically, our focus today is on the New Testament and one of the gospels? Should we be reading it as if it were a novel? Is that how Jesus felt his life and mission should be conveyed?
“Should we weep real tears because of the suffering and the lack of understanding and the persecution that occurred to him? And then wipe our eyes and go about our business because we’ve read a very deeply moving story, as we might have turned on a television set? Is that the kind of surface research that Jesus expected of his followers? When he said in John 5:39, “search the Scriptures,” I doubt you could ever apply that to television. Who wants to search television? There is obviously an object in view which Jesus knew would not benefit him, but would be enormously rewarding. The yield on that kind of investment would leap out of the page into the lives of those who did it. Therefore, “the word would be made flesh,” (John 1:14).
“John 1:1 starts his gospel off, “In the beginning was the Word.” The Greek is, en arche hin ho logos. Does arche look familiar to you? It is the root word in “archeology.” It’s an exciting word. It doesn’t just mean when things begin or when they have started in a human way, so much as, translated by some scholars, as “the first principle” of things.
“For instance, when Jerome, in about 400 A.D. translates the Greek Bible into Latin, here’s how he does those opening words. “In principio,” which, of course, is our root of our word “principle,” in principio. He could have used another Latin expression which is “ab initio, ” which would have meant at the initial phases of things, but instead he chooses a Latin word which has a dual meaning which could be “principle,” the first principle, the origin, the basis of things.
“If we choose that particular Greek meaning for the opening of both Genesis and John, then it gives it an entirely different connotation. If, in principle, God created the heaven and the earth, or in principle, was the word, it starts out like many mathematical or scientific textbooks which start out with the statement of principle. Everything else derives from it. But then we come to a word which John uses in teh first chapter and uses again in successive chapters but never with the same connotation. It stands out in its uniqueness and it is so emphatically important to the author that we just have to dwell on it somewhat and see what it might mean.
“Let me give you a partial history of the word. What automatically occurs to you as the meaning of logos? We take this word, “Word,” and identify it with logos. This is likely being written at some point during the 1st century A.D. Way back in the 6th century B.C., Heraclitus at Ephesus was attempting philosophically to explain continuity amid all the flux around him. He resorted to logos as the eternal principle of order in the universe, the kind of reliable, unchanging law and order. This is several centuries prior to John’s use of it. (Interestingly enough, people think that the Gospel of John may have been written there.)
“From that period, we can trace the word logos through many, many different concepts. Zeno (of Elea, c 490 – c 430 B.C.), a Greek philosopher used it in the connotation of right reason, of reality within the mind, pure thought. Which leads me to what Professor Dodd has said, “It is only in Greek that a term is available which means both thought and word, and that’s logos.” Only in Greek have you that term that can convey both thought and word. So, when you’re talking about logos, even from the standpoint of word, if we are not giving to it what really is behind it, we’re losing something of the message, aren’t we?
“Why does the additional concentration on thought add to the definition of word? When you go behind the word to the thought, you’re dealing with ideas, concepts, and the meaning. It is where all human languages finally give up their fragmentation and meet, and become one, in a Pentecostal day of infinite communication. The “word” is but an instrument which we must meet at the thought or at the meaning. Then, no barriers, especially language barriers, can stand between us and comprehension of one another, of the universe, its laws, and the source of those laws.
“Dodd continues: “In Origen’s commentary on the 4th gospel which is being written, again very early in the history of the Christian church. In reading Origen’s commentary, there are interpretations in there, in the Greek that he’s writing, which absolutely depend upon taking logos not only in the sense of word, but it alternates without warning with the other sense of rational principles. So, the continual indication of this word principle is something that is significant.”
“Do you know where we use logos in the English language? Biology, physiology. Logos is the one that has been used to define the sciences in the English language. This was the comprehension at least of the lexicographers who developed our own language of the Greek term. Look how it’s lasted even in our language. We use it all the time without realizing it, taking it for granted. Is there a scientific connotation, then, that “In the beginning,” “In the first principle of things,” there is a scientific unvarying, inalienable, order that’s ruling. And that it’s not only being uttered as an expression or word, but behind it is the immense thought that also must be based on the same principle. Notice in Verse 1of Chapter 1 that it all related with and to God.
“John 1:3 continues with a statement that is quite absolute, “All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Is there any reservation for qualifications? “All things were made by him. That is [an] enormous commitment to make at the beginning of a book. The theology of this book is therefore committed right squarely on what principle if we’re now defining the theological principle on which the Bible is based? Not only oneness of God, but the fact He’s one, also means He’s all. “All things were made by Him.” Everything is created by Him. That also poses problems, because all we have to do is open our eyes and look around us. And what we see, we’d rather not think was created by God. But as of now, we’ve just started the book. So, let’s see what the style of the author is and his theological commitments. “All things were made by Him.”
“He doesn’t leave it there. The very next sentence adds, “Without him was not any thing made that was made.” Why is he saying that? Doesn’t “all things were made by Him” take care of the other part? What is the difference? What’s the distinction that he is implanting in his readers’ thought right at the beginning of the book? “All things were made by Him.” What would you call that? That kind of statement is an absolute, but is it also an affirmation. It’s a real solid plus. This is a plus of the theological view of John. “All things were made by Him.”
“What have we got now? Denial. Here is how we’re going to deal with the minus element. The minus element is without Him, “without him was not any thing made that was made.” Any hint of a minus existing after the all-things-were-made-byhim being declared, is removed, because it is the other side of the same coin.
“The plus, the minus, the affirmation, the denial is a mathematical approach. Dealing with the plus, dealing with the minus and ending up with one, not dualism. One, so there’s no doubt that the key to the gospel is monotheism. It challenges the reader’s thought to see if he’s there at that altitude before he continues any further in the gospel. It forces the reader to get to that height in order to remotely communicate with what’s in the gospel.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
EXPERIENCE NO WAITING, NO SIDE-EFFECTS OR AFTER-EFFECTS with GOD’S HEALING & PREVENTATIVE CARE! Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 33:9, 11, on the last and following verses of citation B2)
[Cobbey:] “Psalm Chapter 33, Verse 9, we’ve already alluded to. The swiftness of God’s treatment.
“It’s not a process, according to the Bible. It’s not recuperation. It’s not convalescence, or gradual recovery. “He spake, and it was [done].” In case we have had room in our thinking for a possibility of relapse, it is stated, “He commanded, and it stood fast.” No side effects, no after effects.
[Warren:] This quick action reminds me of a unique bumper sticker that referred to Genesis 1:3:
“The Big Bang theory:
“Let there be light” and
BANG! It happened!”
ONE OF MANY APPLICATION IDEA EXAMPLES OF QUICKLY ANSWERED PRAYER as WITNESSED by HUNDREDS (this example relates to God’s control of the weather):
EXAMPLE OF HOW “QUICK AND POWERFUL” THE WORD OF GOD IS! God’s control of the weather shown for all to see 7/19/2009:
During Rest Hour after lunch on the middle Sunday of Session 3, 2009, a call for help from David Napper went out all around camp to 30 radios in the hands or our management team and program directors. David had been mowing our Bermuda-grass soccer field before an afternoon game, when some thatch against the hot engine of the mowing tractor caught on fire and threatened to catch the tractor and the whole, dry Bermuda-grass field on fire. All of us who heard the call were praying as we rushed to the field to help.
Seeing that no water hydrant or hoses were nearby and that the immediate need was great, I shouted loudly for all to hear—not a mere “O.M.G.” of surprise—but an EXPECTANT PRAYER AND CALL TO GOD: “Oh My God! We need water NOW!” Without a cloud in the sky or on radar, within about 10 seconds the prayer that I started by “taking God’s name” was NOT “in vain” (Commandment 3, Exodus 20).
Along with a quick, cooling breeze from Him “who holds the winds in His fists” came a significant rain that right away started falling above us as so greatly needed. It lasted –almost 30 minutes—putting out the fires and making puddles on previously dry roads! As Rest Hour ended, over 200 children and their counselors from Girls Camp as well as Boys Camp came out of their cabins to dance in God’s rain on our wet gravel roads and splash in the puddles!
The rain stopped conveniently on cue, just as games began, so I went to CedarS mailbox (about ¼ mile away) –and saw that the roads from there to Lebanon were bone dry! What cannot God do!! I later pulled up a weather app that showed over a half inch of rain only over CedarS. This was witnessed not just by our prayer team holding radios, but also by the whole camp–many who went home to testified about it in their home churches.
This modern-day example of A.P. (Answered Prayer) History at CedarS provides a segue to connect with GEMs of a recurring theme to call on God: “I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me…” (Ps. 118:5) and “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High…shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble” with an “Oh My God” plea as in Ps. 25:2, Ps. 40:8,…).
“In Psalm 33, Verse 11, “The advice or counsel of the LORD stands” for how long? “For ever.” What good is that, if we aren’t there forever to receive such advice? “The thoughts of his heart to all generations.” What good are God’s thoughts unless those are the potions we are supposed to be taking, imbibing, ingesting. God’s thoughts, His potions. Take them, eat them up, drink them in. That makes the Bible a pharmacopoeia which is a word the dictionary says describes “preparations issued by official authority and recognized as a standard.”
Pharmacopoeia, which is a word that in its ordinary meaning without uplifting it to what the Bible would require of the term anew would just simply be an authority to which one would turn to know where all remedies are.”
“Psalm 34:19. We have the therapeutic and the prophylactic. We have the healing and the preventive art. “Many of the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. ” That’s the therapeutic power of God. But it goes even a step further in Verse 20, “He keepeth all his bones. ” That means “He guards or protects all his bones not one of them is broken. ” [It] is the prophylactic, the preventive, power of God’s therapy.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
THE WORD COMES “AS IN HEAVEN, SO ON EARTH!” –
Cobbey Crisler on John 1:12-14 – “the Word made flesh” … uniquely as a model
[John 1:12, 13] “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God… which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
“Again, does it tie in with Genesis 1? Are we suddenly seeing that when in Genesis 1, which we know the author has in mind here in this chapter (Genesis 1:26), man is declared categorically to be in the image and likeness of God?
“The author here saying that image and likeness is not “composed of blood, nor) can it be identified as having emerged because of a fleshly or carnal desire, or from human will, but directly from God.” Don’t go bumping along on a detour to get to God. There’s a theology that certainly clears out a good number of obstructions, if it’s valid, if it’s something we can use, and not pie-in-the-sky metaphysically speaking.
“To show that it isn’t pie-in-the-sky, John 1:14 (citation B8) introduces the word “made flesh,” lived, illustrated, exemplified; it’s been done, it’s not just theory. The thought has been uttered in human experience, in life. Human life itself has seen this Word fulfilled. Was he the vanguard, the way shower?
“He is called in Verse 14, almost in contradiction to what I’m saying, that he was “the only begotten of the Father.” That seems fairly exclusive, doesn’t it? Since it would also contradict Verse 12 where it refers to “sons of God,” it just must be something in the translation we’re missing, the intent: You can’t have sons of God and have one son being the only begotten. That would be mixed-up theology right in the beginning in a book that we are saying is extremely clear and close to Jesus own thought.
“So, what have we got? The Greek word “mono genes” doesn’t mean “only begotten.” If it has any meaning that we can express in English, it could be “unique,” in the sense that he was representing the original man as a model. In other words, the only real man that God could ever beget.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
ACCEPT THAT SPACE IS NO OBSTACLE TO HEALING BY THE POWER OF GOD’S WORD!
Cobbey Crisler on John 4:46-53 (citation B8):
[Cobbey:] “In John 4:46 we go “back to Cana, and while Jesus was there a nobleman has a sick son at Capernaum. ”
John 4:47, He asks Jesus to “come heal his son at the point of death.”
John 4:48. What is Jesus doing? Does he say, “Right away.”? He’s working with the Father’s thought, isn’t he? What does he say? “Unless you see signs and wonders, you won’t believe.” The implication is that we trust before we get the result. Remember that is exactly what Jesus illustrated in the raising of Lazarus (in last week’s Bible Lesson). Trust that it was already done, complete and finished.
John 4:49, “The nobleman says, Sir, come down ere my child die.” The physical proximity of a physician was considered necessary, then as now, to heal.
John 4:50, “Jesus says” instead, “Go thy way; thy son lives”.
John 4:50, “The man trusted sufficiently in what Jesus said and went his way.”
It’s a fair walk from what has been thought to be the location of Cana to Capernaum. You can imagine what has been going on in the father’s thought, the anticipation of the event, maybe doubt, and whether he was ever convinced of what Jesus said?
John 4:51, “His servants meet him half way, and they say, Your son lives.” Those were the same words Jesus said. The last words Jesus had said are repeated here.
John 4:52. He says to his servant, “Tell me, what time exactly did he begin to improve?” Notice, built into the father’s thought was that it had to take time or process. What time did he begin to improve? “The servant announcement is, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him, instantly. ”
John 4:53. So, the father checked his watch. And he knew it was the same hour
that Jesus said, in Verse 50, “Thy son liveth.”
What you see there is something that physicists say exists in nature to some degree, namely, action-over-a-distance. Physicists define as part of this action-over-distance what? Light, magnetism, electricity, sound, things like that. Actionover-a-distance. Jesus said humanity better consider another candidate for action over-a-distance, a candidate that will eventually replace all. Namely, prayer. Prayer-action-over-a-distance.
You didn’t have to be physically near someone to have someone healed. What freedom that announces to mankind if there’s no physical prerequisite for healing! Healing can occur regardless of time and space (and time and space are not obstacles to healing), it occurs mentally or in thought. Prayer travels faster than a man could walk from Cana to Capernaum. The healing got there before the father. The healing was there just as Jesus indicated in John 3:13, “No man ascendeth up to heaven except he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” This is how Jesus regarded the son of this nobleman, and then proved his vision.
Do we have any evidence of what Jesus said was the summary of his mission? Proof that angels were ascending and descending on the Son of Man (John 1:51)? In the case of the nobleman’s son, it is healing. There is verification. There is a semeion, or an identifying mark, or feature of Jesus’ theology. Completely leaving the old definition of religion for the new, a practical form of theology which brings with it results.”
“Book of John: A Walk with the Beloved Disciple” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren’s P.S.] Here are a couple of free visual resources that illustrate this story of Jesus healing the nobleman’s son. Click “View Slide Show” &/or “Download Image Set” at: FreeBibleimages :: Jesus heals the Official’s son in Capernaum (John 4:43-53 (citation B9) A video version is at https://vimeo.com/160922524]
How is this this story in citation B9/John 4:46-53 and example of the healing power of the Word at work? Why was it chosen specifically for this Bible Lesson?
KNOW the TRUTH to FREE the BEST YOU from being FOOLED & KILLED (slowly or fast) by LIES!
Cobbey Crisler on John 8:32 (citation B10)
[Cobbey:] “John 8:32. Here is the recipe for freedom, “It’s the truth itself that makes you free.”
It is the fact that makes you free. In John 8:44, the devil is defined as a liar and also a murderer from the beginning. If you analyze that again, the devil has one of two purposes when it enters into the thoughts and lives of man. It is either to deceive or to murder or kill us or others. That’s the motive prompting the thought, critical or otherwise. Remember, judging righteous judgment eliminates most criticisms, and not judging according to appearance. It [the lying “fake news” that proclaims the reality and power of matter] either murders or kills our neighbor or ourselves, OR its purpose is to deceive—one or the other.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren’s P.S.] Greek word meanings that elevate what Jesus means by “Know the truth:
“Then Jesus said to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:31, 32 (citation B10)
Know in Greek is ginosko and means:
- to distinguish what is real from what is not
- to perceive, understand, discern, distinguish
- to perceive with the mind
- to have a clear perception of truth
truth in Greek is aletheia and means:
- what is real and factual and actual, not counterfeit
- no error, no lie, no falsity, no variance
So, to “KNOW THE TRUTH” means knowing, or being conscious of, what is already true!
Ruth E. Huff, my mother and the Founder of CedarS Camps, loved her eight years of conducting CedarS tours of Mary Baker Eddy’s homes with the supported of Longyear Foundation. One of her favorite take-aways from what she learned on these tours was a recollection recorded in Elizabeth Earl Jones Reminiscences: “Mary Baker Eddy was once asked by a reporter, what is a Christian Science treatment? After a few moments of deep thought she answered:
“Treatment is the absolute acknowledgment of the ever presence of infinite perfection!”
My mom, Ruth E. Huff, the Founder of CedarS Camps, so loved working with this mindset of knowing-the-truth-of-perfection that she shared it with CedarS staff and families in the form of cards printed with the highlighted definition above.
BE AN ADHERENT OF TRUTH BY TAKING “THE INSPIRED WORD OF THE BIBLE”
AS YOUR SUFFICIENT GUIDE TO ETERNAL LIFE! (cit. S21/497:3)
Follow the evolution of the 1st Tenet of Christian Science as researched by
The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Mankind
FIRST TENET
| Current edition of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy | 1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
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| 1879 “Tenets and Covenant” | 1st. — As adherents to Truth, we take the Scriptures for our guide to Life eternal.
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| 1887 “Tenets to be Signed by those Uniting …”
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First. — As adherents of Truth, we take the Scriptures for our guide to Life.
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| 1892 (from “Church Tenets and Rules”) | 1. As adherents of Truth, we take the scriptures as our guide to eternal Life.
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| 214th edition of Science and Health
(1901) |
1. As adherents of Truth we take the inspired Word of the Bible for our guide to eternal Life.
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| 251st edition
(1902) |
1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to Eternal Life.
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DEMONSTRATE THE HEALING EFFECTS OF “BEING OF ONE ACCORD!
Cobbey Crisler on Acts 4:32/cit. B15 & 5:17-42/cit. B16 (plus pre-verses 12-16)
[Cobbey:] “Acts 4, verse 32, shows you again, church, by definition: “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul….”
“Acts 5, verse 12, gives us our familiar phrase of unity. It’s what? “They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.” …
“Now, Acts 5, verse 15, shows that healing is occurring all over. As a matter of fact, the indiscriminate public sense of it was “that even Peter’s shadow passing on people seemed to heal people.” …
“Many came out bringing sick people,” in verse 16. … “And this stirs up – it seems like healing stir up Ecclesiasticism more than anything else,” because Ecclesiasticism isn’t capable of getting to the level (apparently) which permits them to do such healing. (See below)
Acts 5:17 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
And, in Acts 5, verse 18, “they high priest gets up and they throw the apostles in a common prison.” (See below)
Acts 5:18 And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.
Acts 5, verse 19, look at the power of collective prayer — “It can open prison doors. And they go back to the temple, and they start talking.” (See below, Acts 5:19)
Acts 5:19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth…
Now, in the meantime, the meeting is going to go on, you see. And they’re still meeting.
Acts 5:20 Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.
In early morning, the council is all together (in verse 21). And they’re saying, “What are we going to do with those fellows in prison, but they don’t know that a few yards from them they’re still preaching out in the temple, despite the fact that they’ve been put in prison.”
So, “when the officers come to get them, they’re not there and nothing’s been touched. The keepers are all there. The doors are all shut, but no prisoners.”
So, you can understand the last two lines in Acts 5, verse 24: “The council, or Sanhedrin, this is the very group that convicted Jesus, doubted where this was going to grow.”
So at that point while they were doubting, “someone came in with the news that the ones they were looking for were in the temple, not too far from where they were, still teaching the people. So they bring them without violence because they thought they might be stoned. And, when they bring them before the Sanhedrin, again the power to convict is there as the Sanhedrin convicted Jesus.” …
Well, returning to Acts 5, verse 29, “Peter and the other apostles say what? Against, yes, if there’s a choice, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
They review. It’s sort of rubbing it in, I must say, you know. They really review the crucifixion with the same group, many members of which had been responsible for it.
And, Acts 5, verse 33, shows you “how much this inquisition – had little really it accomplished except to make them madder.” (See below, paraphrased)
Acts 5:33 When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.
And at that point, in verse 34, we’re introduced to “Gamaliel.” (See below)
Acts 5:34 Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space;
Gamaliel is probably the second most famous rabbinical teacher in Jewish history, after Phileo the Great. And I think Gamaliel was Phileo’s grandson. Gamaliel is the teacher of Paul, so you can see the kind of and quality of instruction that Paul had as a Pharisee. Gamaliel well deserved his reputation if the following account is correct. It says he had “quite a reputation even then” in Acts 5, verse 34.
And here is his speech to the group: “He says, “Let’s wait a minute before we touch these men.” (Acts 5:35).
“We have two other instances: Theudas and Judas of Galilee, in our history, who went out to start movements. And they were either killed or captured, and the movement collapsed.” (See Acts 5:36, 37)
“So my advice to you, Gamaliel says, (in verse 38) is to let these men alone.” (See below, paraphrased)
And a very beautiful counsel that even his students saw does not follow, later.
“If this counsel be of men, it won’t come to anything, but if it’s of God, nothing we can do can overthrow it unless we want to be found in opposition to God.” (See below Acts 5, 38, 39, paraphrased)
Acts 5:38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
Acts 5:39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
Beautiful statement of the highest quality of Pharisaical thinking, liberality in thought which has been attested to, certainly, by many scholars. The Pharisees did have a higher sense of things than the Sadducees in that respect.
Well they agree with Gamaliel. They beat the apostles; they had to get that out of their system. Again, tell them not to speak in Jesus’ name. And guess what they do? They go back rejoicing, rejoicing, that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. And when you stop to think about that kind of apostolic thinking, do we have it? Would we qualify? Or do we turn tail at the first kind of disappointment, or when somebody doesn’t really appreciate or like what we’re doing in church. You know why? – Part of the reason – they undoubtedly rejoiced? Because they must have remembered it as Matthew records it that Jesus had said this, personal instruction to his disciples.
He said, “Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves” But “beware of men for they will deliver you up to the councils.” What had just happened? “And they will scourge you in their synagogues.” (Matt 10:16, 17 paraphrased)
Matt 10:19 But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
Matt 10:20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
And what did Peter wait for before he opened his mouth – to be filled with the Holy Ghost? What if that attitude characterized every church meeting and persecution today? …
What a legacy Jesus left, and just think of the preparation of thought during that 40-day period. Remember what it was like just after the resurrection. Where was his church? Had it been built? Where was his church after that 40-day period?
And were the disciples back fishing? If they were fishing, what were they doing after the 40 days? They were “fishers of men” which Jesus had said they should be. (Mark 1:17)
So perhaps we have a preliminary answer. “After the Master What?” can be answered preliminarily with “church.” And church defined as “with one accord.” (See Acts 1:1)
Now that almost means that anywhere perhaps in our world today you can get this feeling of “with one accord” under one God, you have an expression of church in that form of definition, whether marriage, international agreements, business conferences, whatever. “With one accord” under one God and harmony, which as we know, the world seems in very bad need of.”
“After the Master, What? The Book of Acts,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
KEEP SINGLE-MINDED WITH YOUR “EYES ON THE PRIZE” OF LIBERTY!
CedarS Actionable Mindsets Practiced Today from Warren’s 10/7/19 insights from James 1:25:
“whoso looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
- “Keep your eyes on the prize”—on the perfect law of liberty (like on the Statue of Liberty which David Copperfield “vanished” by literally “turning the tables” under his entire audience as explained by Christie Hanzlik) and shown on YouTube youtube.com/watch?v=823GNH4Rczg. If our perfect –free, large, full— liberty seems to be “vanished” by a group consent illusion or a popular turning to material beliefs, we can instantly turn the tables on those fables and look continually to the perfectly stable and divinely invariable LAW of liberty…
- Be an unwavering, all-in DOER— NOW! — NOT a forgetful hearer!
Find meaning in the rest of the first chapter of James:
Cobbey Crisler’s insights on James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect—free, large, full—gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”—as in an eclipse (W: or a revolving audience for a vanishing Statue of Liberty trick).
As promised in scriptures:
“God is not a man, that he should lie…hath he not said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19}
And, “For I am the Lord; I change not.” (Malachi 3:6)
James 1:18 “Of his own will begat he us with the word—logos—of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures”—a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself.”
[per Warren’s notes on Cobbey Crisler’s talk on “The Book of Job”]
… “We already know that James read Job because we read the verse (James 5:11) that mentions Job in it…
James 1:6 tells us how we should pray— [W’s 10/7/19 notes: like Job did who never wavered in proclaiming his spiritual innocence. Job so refined his powerful prayers of protest to God that he received his healing and “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10)].
Cobbey: You’ll find when prayer is not prayer… “Let him ask in faith nothing wavering.” Wavering suggests this to-and-fro state of mind…
James 1:8 “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”…
James 3:17 “But the wisdom that is from above” all stems from the commitment to oneness.”
“The Book of Job: A Mental Court Case” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
As James 3:17 declares wise prayer from above are committed to oneness and guaranteed of success. As Mary Baker Eddy states of prayers of unsuccessful prayer for President McKinley when he was shot. “Had prayer so fervently offered possessed no opposing element, and President McKinley’s recovery been regarded as wholly contingent on the power of God, — on the power of divine Love to overrule the purposes of hate and the law of Spirit to control matter, — the result would have been scientific, and the patient would have recovered.”
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 293:21)
Here’s to breaking down these precious, promises and principles and to applying them to get the blessings of putting them into practice with “no opposing element”: Look to “the perfect (free, large, full) law of liberty” (cit. B20/James 1:25) as an unwavering, permanent gift from above as we know the truth and practice it.
As Mary Baker Eddy says in the concluding citation “Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practiced.” (cit. 29/174:20)
